South Korea has officially proposed North Korea send its athletes, cheerleaders and performers for the aquatics worlds it will host later this year.

Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon made the proposal on Monday during a Seoul event to unveil the mascot of the 18th FINA World Aquatics Championships to be held in Gwangju in July.

He expressed hope the two Koreas will discuss the plan when they hold a trilateral meeting with the International Olympic Committee(IOC) in Switzerland from Thursday to talk about inter-Korean sports cooperation.

Lee said he anticipates to see the formation of a unified Korean team at the aquatics worlds at least in several disciplines as in last year's PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games.

Mentioning the event’s slogan, “Dive into Peace,” the prime minister stressed the North's participation in order to truly make it a peace event.